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One of the world's largest derivatives clearing houses has bolstered its firewall against any client's collapse, raising its credit line by two-thirds to $5bn as new regulations push more business its way.

CME Group which runs Chicago's big futures exchanges and the New York Mercantile Exchange energy-trading platform in New York, is expected to be a prime beneficiary of regulators' efforts to reduce systemic risk and boost transparency in the financial system by forcing more trades to be cleared.

Clearing houses stand between trades to guarantee payment in the event one side defaults, and have become both a potential solution for policy makers and a more important link in the financial system. That has seen them classed alongside the largest banks as systemically important, with tougher capital requirements to match.

CME's move, disclosed in a regulatory filing, comes ahead of a rerouting of trillions of dollars in trades in interest-rate and credit-default swaps to regulated trading venues, rather than being privately arranged, from the turn of the year.

The shift is part of the US Dodd-Frank financial law passed in 2010 that requires trades in many non-standardised, over-the-counter derivatives to be processed by clearing houses. Such facilities hold collateral posted by traders to back up outstanding deals that can then be drawn upon to make good on those deals if a clearing house member becomes insolvent. The idea is to reduce the risk to other firms in the collapse of a major Wall Street player that is party to many swap deals.

"With the [over-the-counter derivatives] clearing mandate approaching, we anticipate a significant growth in the amount of collateral on deposit and have adjusted our liquidity facility as a result," a spokeswoman for CME, the world's largest futures-exchange operator, said in an email.

Beyond the margin posted by member firms, clearing house managers maintain credit lines that can be drawn to handle a default and avoid a forced sale of trading collateral at a time when financial markets may be stressed. Accepting over-the-counter derivatives into clearing houses means the facilities will be backing trades in instruments that are less frequently traded, larger in size and more complex than the futures and options contracts that clearing houses historically have handled.

In response, firms that deal in swap contracts have sought to use a broader array of collateral to back up their trading in such derivatives, beyond the cash, Treasurys and agency securities that are typically posted with clearing houses.

"There is tremendous pressure on [clearing houses] to expand eligible collateral, and this is an indication of that," said Craig Pirrong, professor of finance at the University of Houston.

As clearing houses accept a broader array of collateral, it may become harder to sell those securities in a high-stress environment, deepening clearing houses' need for credit, he said. "This is a major issue that cuts across every [clearing house] in the world," he said.

In November 2011, CME reported that its clearing house held a $3bn credit facility, with the ability to seek an increase to $5bn. The new agreement, agreed November 8, expands the line of credit to $5bn with the ability to seek up to $7bn, though the banks involved aren't required to provide that much funding, according to the filing.

IntercontinentalExchange which is also pursuing business from clearing swaps, maintains a $2.1bn credit line secured in November 2011. A spokeswoman said the company is "constantly evaluating" its financial liquidity options.

LCH.Clearnet, a London-based clearing house operator that has handled interest-rate swap deals made among banks for more than a decade, has no such credit facility "as we have adequate liquidity in place," according to a spokeswoman.

OCC, which handles all US options trading and aims to expand in equity-related swaps, recently reviewed its liquidity needs and kept in place an existing $2bn line of credit, according to a spokesman.